A conventional database system manages access and updates to stored database objects using locks. For example, in order to update a database object, a transaction may first be required to acquire an exclusive lock associated with the database object. The foregoing technique may prevent parallel transactions from creating data inconsistencies by independently updating a same database object.
Parallel transactions are acceptable for some types of data (e.g., numbers) and some types of update operations (e.g., addition, subtraction). Such update operations may be applied to the data in any particular order without jeopardizing data consistency. However, the conventional locking techniques are unsuitable for supporting parallel transactions.